


Knife's Edge

by unconventionaled



Category: Hunger Games (2012), Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Bloodplay, Clothed Sex, F/M, Knifeplay, Masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 19:13:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/677909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unconventionaled/pseuds/unconventionaled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's nothing that Cato likes more than Clove and her knives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knife's Edge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vergoldung](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vergoldung/gifts).



> Vaguely inspired by Placebo's Pierrot the Clown. Also this makes me really sad because I try to forget that I ship these two because they both end up DEAD.

She was eight and she met his eye across the training arena. Mostly they let the little ones in (he didn’t consider himself a little one, even though he was only nine) to watch the older pupils and get a taste for fighting. He certainly hadn’t twirled a knife between his fingers like he’d been born with it attached to him. Normally he didn’t care about the “little kids”. Cato was old enough to try constantly to get involved, to do as much as he possibly could. Only three years before he could be reaped and he fully intended to make the most of them. Of course, there was no real danger of him going into the games until he volunteered, but he took the whole thing seriously anyway. Pure coincidence lead to him meeting her eye, seeing the way she turned her blade as she pretended to listen to the instructions during a sparring demonstration. He would have dismissed her as useless, never going to see the Arena, but something in her eyes told him she knew all of this already. Cato’s stomach clenched.

\---

A year later, he learned her name for the first time. They didn’t let the trainees fight each other until they were ten when they had their first tournament with blunt instruments. Not to hurt each other, but to get the feel for working against someone else who was holding nothing back. Just in case a young one accidentally got into the Games. He’d won. Everything. His lip was split open and bleeding, his skin gleamed with sweat, but he’d beaten every one of his peers. They’d always known he was good, but the look in everyone’s eyes said something different now. It said he was a future victor.

She leaned against the wall, reigning queen, the haughtiest nine-year-old he’d ever met with that shrewd look in her eyes as she sized him up. “You want something?” He grinned. She had to be impressed, the girl-with-the-knives. She had to.

Sliding the blade of her knife under her fingernails, she half-looked at him. “You’re not always going to be the tallest and strongest. Straighten up your form. Or someone will get past your guard.”

Cato gaped. He’d just been victorious. He was king, for the moment, and she had the audacity to try and steal his throne, shatter his crown? To _walk away_? Years later, he realized it was respect that made her say that, the desire not to see him die. In the moment it just felt like emasculation. 

“Hey!” he called after her. She turned. “Hey, what’s your name?" 

“Clove.”

Clove. Spices and winds, all wild girl. He would say something to best her but his mind went blank. Clove. Her eyes burned in his mind for the rest of the night, pierced only by the knife that always hung between her fingers.

 

\---

The first blood she drew (that he saw) splattered across the floor, glinting like something precious. If was her first practice tournament with real weapons and of course, she won. She’d never let him beat her at anything without her permission. That was how Clove was. One of her braids had fallen loose and swung around her face as she spun and ducked around the boy who looked like he could crush her skull in his palms. Her clever face showed only intensity, focus never once flickering as the knives she fought with flashed in and out (no throwing allowed, that would kill). Cato resisted the urge to scoff. They’d give her daggers, throwing knives, anything she wanted in the Arena. How could they not?

He let himself fall into a daydream he’d slowly begun constructing, the one where he mentored young, went to the Capitol the year she was Reaped. Assuming she’d be 18 by then, he’d have been a Victor for at least a year. Maybe two. Ostensibly he’d be there for his male tribute but it would be her and he’d show them there was no alternative but to give her sharp, light steel. Something she could hurl. Bury in the back of this cretin who had nothing on her. He’d never see her coming. In a real fight, Clove already would have downed him before he could even touch her.

A collective yell wakened him from his daydream, brought him back to the scene in front of them just in time to see the arc of blood, the lovely pattern it made on the ground. There it was, blood and beauty. The knife was still held in her hand and she had a second one pressed against his jugular, able to dig in in a flash of motion if she wanted to. Her blades gleamed with the same dark wetness that she’d drawn on the floor, two long furrows making their way down the other twelve-year-old’s arm. Cato’s stomach clenched.

He caught up with her as she was leaving, barely damaged (save for a bruise was beginning to form on the underside of her jaw and something that looked like a burn mottling her shoulder). “Nice work, Clove.”

She shrugged and ran a finger over the blade that she’d put back into her hands with the possessiveness of a lover as soon as she was allowed. “I’d have done better if I hadn’t had to pull my hits.”

Cato didn’t, couldn’t argue, just shuddered somewhere deep inside and watched her walk away. Pretended he wasn’t staring at the determined set of her shoulders, the fierceness in her eyes. She didn’t regret the blood. Only that there wasn’t more of it.

His forehead pressed, hot on cool, against the wall of the shower that night. Here were the things he knew: he shouldn’t be thinking about her like this. Clove was _twelve_ , and there was, as Cato had discovered, a world of difference between being twelve and thirteen. He knew he couldn’t get the image out of his head, the quick strike and the sudden welling of blood, the way he’d seen her lick her nails clean when she’d thought no one was watching. He knew his cock throbbed in his hand, harder with every time that montage played in his head. Clove, with her knives. Fighting. Clove, drawing blood. Fingernails. Clove.

Giving in, Cato closed his eyes and let his mind take him where it would, to a place where she threw those knives with unerring accuracy, even looking at him, and he couldn’t decide whether to watch her or the spurt of blood as she cut, cut, cut. He could almost imagine that it was her fingers running along the underside of his cock, thumbing the slit so that he jerked his hips into his own hand, a moan involuntarily escaping his throat. That she might trail her blade down his chest and take control like she had from the first moment he spoke to her and that he could come so hard he saw white and stars and _nothing_. His cock pulsed in his hand, shooting off with his cry of pleasure not quite suppressed because for a moment spatters of blood appeared behind his eyes and he knew quite certainly that the Clove in his head had made a cut.

Quietly, Cato cleaned himself up as if he could scrub off his shame. This was wrong, he knew that, but he couldn’t get her out of his head. Nothing and no one made him quite so happy or quite so insane as Clove did.

 

\--- 

At fourteen, she began training extra hard.

Clove had always worked to be the best, the strongest, the most difficult to beat, but this was something else. This was violent, careless. Cato could see from a glance that she honestly didn’t care if she hurt one of the other trainees, only bothered not to kill them because she’d get in the kind of trouble she didn’t need for a transgression that large. She trained like a dervish, every inch furious skill, every target she aimed at slain. Those five bullseyes, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, when Clove tossed her knives like she didn’t even need to aim to hit the direct center. Each hit echoed through Cato’s chest and straight to both his heads. 

He stopped what he was doing entirely to watch her work. Leaned against the wall, all arrogance and well-toned muscle and stared at her like he could eat her alive. Every one of her throws was perfect, to the point where her classmates would let her pin them on a target board, even knowing the risk. Because sometimes her throws weren’t perfect. 

Sometimes Clove hurled one of her deadly projectiles and it sliced into someone’s skin. Took off a layer, cut deeply, cut them open. Sometimes she’d turn and meet Cato’s eyes right after her victim’s scream finished rending the air. Sometimes there’d be a splat of blood on her cheek and always she’d walk over and pull her knife out of the board or even wall where it had stuck.

Often Cato had to immediately excuse himself for the restroom. He’d hide in the men’s and get himself off quickly, rubbing his cock and playing it again and again in his head: Clove, slender limbs, flash of steel, and the sudden pain, the way she shared it with him. That agony she caused. It never failed. He convulsed and came violently, release rushing through his veins even as his hands were coated in come and he needed to get back to the training arena. 

The secretive smiles Clove gave him when he walked back in made him wonder if she knew what he was doing. Made him wonder if she liked it. Maybe he was biased, but she didn’t have to hit people ever. Not if she didn’t want to. Of course, she could just be preparing for the Games, for her Arena, when she’d have to throw her knife right into someone’s heart without a compunction (the thought of it made Cato shiver in anticipation – how was he ever going to sit still with the stylists while watching her?) Part of him hoped it might be for him anyway. That she might know how much it affected him and enjoy it, or better. That she might enjoy it just as much.

 

\---

In District Two, there was no “ladies first” as in some of the higher numbered districts. Male and female tributes were equally impressive, equally valued, so there was no hope that a scrawny, underfed girl would be eclipsed by a slightly less scrawny, taller boy if they put him second. District Two didn’t need to indulge in such petty concerns. He volunteered, of course, but it still sent a shock through his body when they picked him. It was usually the eighteen-year-olds who got their chance. No one protested, though. They knew he’d win.

Cato strutted up to the stage, grinning at the raucous applause. Seventy-fourth Hunger Games, meet your new Victor. He could all but hear the certainty emanating from every member of his District. One and Four might have someone good, but he was better. They wouldn’t have a chance against him. He almost pitied them. Almost.

Arms crossed over his chest, Cato waited for his counterpart to be chosen. He didn’t hope for much. Someone worth making an alliance with and someone with a distinctly easy to snap neck when she ceased to be useful. If she was a good partner he’d kill her quickly, without fuss. She would be from his district, after all. He owed her that much.

Aurelian Argent, District Two’s Escort, fished around in a glass bowl dramatically, chasing little slips of paper with his gaudily beringed fingers. Cato resisted the urge to roll his eyes. All of Panam knew the man was a flaming homosexual, he didn’t have to make it even _more_ apparent. He drew out a paper with a flash of his artificially white teeth, snapping it open into the mike so that the pop echoed around the crowd. “This year’s female Tribute… Clov-“

A buzzing that might not exist outside of Cato’s head drowned out the rest of Aurelian’s words. Cato couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, because this was wrong. She was only fifteen. It wasn’t her year to volunteer yet. Someone had to take her place. Someone had to volunteer for her.

Silence reigned. No one dared stand up in Clove’s stead. Not her. It was widely known in District Two that she was a favorite to win. That when she got her chance, you stepped aside and gave it to her. Secretly, some of the girls who would have volunteered were probably relieved that they wouldn’t be up against Cato, that the boy their year might be easier. 

She stepped forward like a queen, not bothering to look at anyone, just staring straight ahead with a triumphant twist to her mouth. As she passed them, people began to applaud, their hands slamming together until she was pushed to the stage by a deafening roar. _Cato and Clove_! _Clove and Cato_! Between the two of them, District Two had a winner this year for sure. 

That ought to have heartened Cato, but in all his imaginings, he’d never once thought of this. He’d have to go through the girl with the knives to become a Victor. He’d have to kill her to win. His stomach knotted.

Almost as if she’d had the same thought at the same moment, Clove turned her head to meet his eyes, eyebrows raising in a flicker-flash so quick he couldn’t quite be sure it happened until he saw the point of a knife sticking out from between her fingers, palmed at some point. His mouth ran dry almost instantly. She could bring him to his knees with a word if she wanted, and he knew, suddenly, that if it came down to her and him he’d never be able to win.

 

\---

He kissed her for the first time on the train.

For about a second it was Cato’s kiss as the full weight of his body pushed her much smaller one up against the wall of her room. He dug blunt teeth into her lip and grabbed her hips, Clove soft and female and pliant under him. That didn’t last long. She arched her back and took over, twisting one hand in his short hair and standing on her tiptoes to press into him mercilessly. She yanked him towards her and even though she was the one pinned against the wall, Clove was also very much in charge.

In the few snatches of thought he managed to glean when not completely distracted by her lips on his, her hand tracing down his chest and the way her leg hooked around his (which _completely_ blew his mind) Cato wondered when Clove had learned to kiss. He’d had a few quiet trysts over the years but never any long-term relationship, and neither had she. But she clearly had some kind of experience with the way she blew through him like a hurricane, leaving him struggling just to keep up.

Something cold trailed down his neck, making him start. She smirked into his mouth, lips curving with that easy superiority as he jumped, not letting him move. Cato’s mind raced even as Clove sucked on his lower lip, but it wasn’t until the blade ran down his neck, ice-cold and thin-edged that he realized she’d stolen a knife from the dinner table.

He realized he was well and truly fucked.

\--- 

She stole a pair of throwing knives from the Training area, so much like the one back in District Two. Difference was, where there the others viewed them with respect, here the inspired flat out fear. Cato liked it. Liked the way those from the lower districts edged around himself and Clove, liked the way they stared at her knives, thudding ominously into dummy bodies, and swallowed. He liked how he knew they were imagining it was them. Their corpses she was making, rather than just those of stand-ins. At dinner, they sat next to each other and he knew she had the knives on her because every so often she’d stroke the back of his hand with a blade between bites. Normally stoic, Cato gasped and shivered so much that Aurelian asked if he was coming down with a cold. Clove smirked into her drink and ran the flat of her blade across the front of his pants. Cato bit his lip. 

She tortured him mercilessly through dinner. Either a flat or a sharp edge kept running into his skin, under his shirt, across his growing erection. He was half-hard and trying to listen to appearance strategies while Clove ran her hand up his thigh. She didn’t have to do much and his imagination would supply the rest. Just flipping her knife left him driven beyond distraction, because she could use it like a fifth limb. Play him like a puppet as she cut into his skin with a gleam in her eye that swallowed him whole. Clove was a cobra and for her (only her) he'd be swallowed whole.

"I'm done." She pushed her chair back from the table and stood up right in the middle of the lecture. Cato didn't need to be psychic to realize that she thought the entire thing was stupid and had no intention of entertaining anyone else's ideas for the rest of the night. "May I please be excused?" A mockery of a question. Clove was leaving no matter what anyone thought about it. The adults just blinked, and she apparently took that as a dismissal. "Coming, Cato?"

He needed no more invitation. The second he stood, he turned away from the table, trying to hide his erection. Even so, Cato wondered if it was pathetically obvious that he trailed after Clove like a puppy. If the mentors thought that he was compromised when it came to her (he refused to admit that that was a possibility), they'd be less likely to send him aid, saving the resources for her. District Two would have a victor. Which meant that one of them had to die. But that thought tied his stomach in knots in a bad way, so Cato pushed it away, focusing on Clove's quick steps, drawing her further and further ahead of him, on the way she leaned against the door to his room with her eyebrows raised.

Opening the door, she gestured for him to enter as though she owned the space, as though he'd just been waiting on her word. Part of him had. Because she was twirling her knives and her slim white fingers worked so quickly around the sharpness of the blades that he could too easily fill in the blood, the slickness and the cut. 

Knife as an extension of her arm, Clove pointed to the bed. Her eyes, devastatingly clever, followed him. Followed his steps, followed the movement of his body under his clothes. She burned into him. "Lay down, Cato." As soon as he had, she crossed the room, straddling him. Her center pressed against his cock through their clothes, hardening him further. She smirked, and it wasn't kind. "You like this, don't you? You've gotten all worked up... by  _what_? Me playing with you a little bit? Do you like to hurt, Cato?" He didn't reply. They were both taunters, but he could say nothing to her, only take her sing-song mockery because she rocked ever so slightly on top of him and the friction did absolutely maddening things.

Clove dug her blade into the collar of his shirt. The fabric, so much more resilient than human flesh, tugged at the blade, not wanting to slice. She pressed harder. Cato jerked as her knife pieced right below his collarbone. "Fuck," he hissed. He could hear his shirt finally rend, but the only thing he could focus on was the way Clove's legs tensed around his hips when she saw the first blood, the darkening of her eyes as she stared at him with unbridled lust. Thank god for Avoxes. They'd take away his ruined shirt and not be able to tell anyone that it had been destroyed. No one needed to know about this. The Capitol had the right idea about keeping secrets.

"Ouch." She pushed the halves of his shirt forcefully to the side, running her finger down the line of blood that had welled up. "You got cut." Deliberately slowly, Clove slipped her finger into her mouth. Cato watched her lick the blood away with bated breath. Even if he knew what was happening, how and why, it still enthralled him, captivated him. Part-metal animal, all wild. That was Clove. Slowly, she again dragged her knife down his chest. The cold of the blade and the heat of his own blood made Cato groan. Her incisions were shallow, she wouldn't hamper him for the Arena, but he felt every bit of the cut, every bit of Clove's utter glee radiating down when his jaw tensed in pain. His cock twitched. Every time she shifted, the way she braced herself on his shoulder and put all of her weight on his body, he could feel all of it and it all ran straight between his legs, the kind of sensation that was impossible to ignore. She should have been named Athena, for a long-ago Goddess of War. It would suit perfectly.

"You're making a mess," Clove muttered. She pressed her lips to his chest, tongue crawling across the cut she'd made. When she bit him, his back arched and he ground into her, ignoring the way she laughed. "You're going to bleed," even left-handed, even not watching, he knew she was making a perfect line down his abdomen, running right to the edge of his pants and god did he want her to just breach that edge and take his cock in her hands, or use her tongue with the same great effect that she swirled it across his bloody skin, " _everywhere_." To anyone else that would probably be a threat but Cato heard it as the darkest, most wonderful-sinful of promises. Her hair trailed over the already-sensitive skin she'd cut as she progressed downward and Cato murmured "fuck" so quietly he didn't even know if she'd heard him until she laughed.

Stopping just shy of the bulge in his pants she slid back up his body, ending with her pussy against him and Cato thought he could feel wetness even though both their pants which should not be physically possible but maybe it was. Her knife dipped down to his skin and she ground into him, the twin pressure unbearably good. His hands fisted in the blankets, not daring to touch her, to profane her body. Judging from the way she licked her own lip, the force of her calves against his hips as she rocked, Clove was doing just fine on her own. She nicked his collarbone and bent over to suck on it, her body flush against his. Cato could feel every curve. He didn't often have self control problems but the way she drove her hips against his made his mind go blank and if she kept playing with those knives like they were part of her own body he was going to embarass himself thoroughly.

Clove's hiss of enjoyment was all but drowned out by the moan wrenched from Cato's throat when she bit down and his hips canted involuntarily up, thrusting into her. The constraints of his pants were unbearable and she began to roll her hips even more fiercely, her cuts haphazard and even more shallow, a bit like when she threw knives, her eyes glazed over and fuck the friction was going to do him in. With any other girl he'd try to get her off first he'd do something more elegant but this was Clove and he'd been fascinated with her and her knifes and the cuts she made since the beginning of time so he just thrust up into her, his cock throbbing as he shot off in his own pants, a veneer of his own blood covering his torso.

Somehow, even as Cato was falling, Clove found it in herself to laugh, to lean down and lap blood off of his skin as she slid her fingers into her own pants and he couldn't quite see what she was doing but before too long she'd keened and shuddered, rolling to lay beside him in a liquid pile of limbs. He didn't dare touch her. Her knives were still somewhere on her person and he wasn't risking that. No. This was her game, the only way he'd ever be able to express the fascination that had overtaken him since the first time he'd seen her. Clove rolled of the bed first and he made no move to follow. She raised her eyebrows, smirked. "Same time tomorrow?" It was all Cato could do to nod.


End file.
